Creative people are often drawn to one another. Actor and singer, Paul Caffrey (featured last month in Greet Del Ray) knows artist Tania Karpowitz and recommended her to me for this month’s feature. I had told Paul I’d been looking for a painter to introduce to fellow Del Ray residents. When I saw Tania’s artwork on her website, I was impressed and contacted her immediately.

                                   

Tania tells me that when she’s painting, she’s intensely focused. Her paintings create a psychological landscape, using color, light, space, and gesture to, in her words, “simultaneously capture individual character and ... transcend the person depicted.”

 

For the first part of her life, Tania worked directly from observation in her studio. Over time, she started painting from memory. She still paints individuals she knows, incorporating the chemistry of their interactions, but she now paints from drawings she’s previously made. This allows her to be more responsive to the needs of the painting itself.

Tania paints in her home studio and teaches at the Art League. Teaching has become an integral part of her painting. She says, “teaching concepts has forced me to learn them more deeply than when I was a student, and my students continue to open up new doors for me.” She enjoys the reflection teaching requires and tries to encourage all her students by critiquing in a positive way, increasing their confidence while explaining what can be improved.                                                                             

She also teaches travel workshops. This past summer, she took a group to Santa Fe, and she offers a class in “The Art of Seeing” where she takes participants to view paintings at museums in Madrid, Spain. There she teaches them to “see” a painting aesthetically rather than only historically.

People used to tell her she wouldn’t have time to paint if she had children, but she and her husband, writer Andy Wingfield, share the responsibilities of family life. Together they’ve raised two children, managed to make a life well-balanced between work and home, and support each other’s artistic endeavors.

 

Seeing is what it’s all about. Her paintings, in her words, “generate dramatic tension, tell stories, and pose provocative questions.” Go to her website, https://www.taniakarpowitz.com to view her amazing art.